The Game Go
by SilverFallen
Summary: For Reizo and Haru, the only way to find out the truth about the mysterious Akatsuki leader, was to beat her at a game of Go. Naruto OC's


Running down the halls, I turned to look over my shoulder and shouted a taunt to my dad, than told my brother to hurry up. We ran around, laughing and grinning from ear to ear as we played our game of tag. Despite how huge the place was, we knew every hall and room by heart. We had lived here our whole lives. We were even born here apparently. We loved it here.

Turning the corner, we dashed down the hall and ran past Deidara and Hidan. Hidan just gave us a funny look. He didn't like us, but he didn't dislike us. He just didn't care for us.

Deidara was a whole 'nother story. He was our godfather, and also my best friend. My brother, Haru, loved him too, but I had called dibs on Deidara along time ago. In our eyes, he was the coolest guy on Earth; after our dad of course. Our favorite thing to do with Deidara; we'd walk up to him and stick our tongues out. He'd stick his out at us with a grin on his face (and his hands for that matter). It was simple, but we loved how he had three mouths. It fascinated us.

He waved at us with a grin as we ran by.

I glanced over my shoulder, fearless. Dad was nowhere to be seen. Grinning, I looked at Haru who smiled back. We'd won again. He couldn't beat us.

We were so busy looking at each other and laughing, we ran right into _her_. We toppled to the floor with an 'oof' from both of us. I rubbed my forehead and pouted; annoyed someone had gotten in our way. When I looked at Haru, he had already gotten up. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed nervously. _Oh crud. Who'd we run into;_ was all I could think, seeing my brother so submissive. It was either Pain, or _her._

We were afraid of Pain, but _she_ was a lot scarier in our eyes. She was the leader of the Akatsuki. The top baddy (although we were told Pain had been leader before we were born and had been a lot worse). She didn't like us. At all. Whenever we came by, her face turned hard and she stopped whatever she was going so she could leave the room. She was almost never at base, but when she was, daddy spent more time with us and got sad really easily. When ever she was around, she went out of her way to avoid us, like we were some deadly disease. We had no clue what we had done to make her hate us so.

When I looked up, I looked right into her cold blue eyes. She stared down at me with a frown, and I realized it was the first time I'd ever gotten to see her up close and so clearly. She was young, younger than Deidara even, and tall for a girl, but still shorter than everyone else (excluding us). Her long reddish-brown hair dangled down past around her waist, and I couldn't help but glance over at Haru quickly. The same reddish-brown hair.

But what struck me and chilled me to the bone, was her dark blue eyes. For a minute, I felt like I was looking in the mirror. Her eyes were the same as mine.

And then she was gone. Barely even a second to look her over, but already the suspicion was rising deep in my gut, telling me I was missing something. And I needed to know. That was when I became turned to learn more about Shizuka Nara.

--

"Hey Kisame!" I called, walking into the living room with Haru. The giant blue-skinned man turned and grinned at us. He was on our 'cool' list too. The fact that he resembled a shark had us excited. Not to mention, he was nice to us. He was our bud.

He was sitting down, legs crossed, at a short table, setting up some weird board game. Peering over his shoulders, we watched him set it up.

"Whatcha playing?" Haru asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Shi and I are going to play Go." He said with a slight smile. "Want to watch?"

We'd heard the rumors that she was unbeatable in Go. Everyone at base knew how to play, except us. It was sort of a hobby here. They played Go all the time. Hidan was at the bottom of the Go food chain; Deidara could beat him, Dad could beat Deidara, Kisame could beat Dad, Konan could beat Kisame, Pain could beat Konan, but nobody could beat Shizuka. It frustrated us. But everyone still liked playing against her, trying to prove they could beat her. We'd never heard of anyone beating her.

Haru and I exchanged a glance, than nodded furiously, hoping today would be the day somebody would beat Shizuka.

"Good!" Kisame said with a grin. He patted the ground next to him, gesturing for us to sit. We did. "Shizuka! Board game's ready!"

She walked in with her slow, lazy gait, biting into a green apple. She sat down across from Kisame, than looked at us. A slight frown crossed her features, than she sighed and shook her head. She gave Kisame a weird look, and he smiled sheepishly. He apologized, but she just waved it off, than took the first move.

Her attitude pissed me off so much, I jumped to my feet. "Kick her butt Kisame!" I yelled, shocking the other three. Kisame looked at me, confused, than laughed. Haru smiled nervously, probably thinking I was in way over my head. But it was Shi's expression I was paying attention to. One delicate eyebrow raised high over the other, and she cocked her head to the side and stared at me. Than she turned to Kisame.

"Why don't we make this more interesting Kisame?" She asked, a slight smirk raising the edges of her lips. "How about a bet?"

The blue man blinked in surprise than looked at me. "Up to you kid." He said, shrugging it off.

Suddenly, I liked the way this way going. A brilliant idea sparked to mind, and I knew I was going to make this bet. I could use this to get back at her for how rude she had been to Haru and me for our whole seven years. We'd get her back.

"If Kisame wins, you have to let us lead Akatsuki for a day! That means we get to boss _you_ around." I said with a grin. Haru blinked in surprise, and looked at me shocked. He gave me the 'what are you thinking' look that I was so used to receiving from him, but I didn't care. I wanted to do this.

"Ok." Shi said coolly, shrugging. "And if I win, you two are doing the dishes for two weeks." Here, we went on a schedule for who did the dishes. Dishes for two weeks sounded like hell, especially since that meant cleaning up after nine people, three times a day, for fourteen days.

"What?!" I snapped.

"Deal or no deal." She said with a smirk playing across her lips. I glared at her long and hard, than sat down and grumbled 'fine'.

"You better not lose Kisame..." Haru grumbled beside me. Suddenly I doubted my ability to make bets, and Kisame's ability to win at a game of Go.

Kisame just sighed, and the game began. Twenty minutes later, he loosed. And that's how we came to do dishes for two weeks. Shizuka smirked now every time she walked by us, obviously enjoying the small victory she could hang over our heads. But I wouldn't have it. I wanted to beat her. I was so sick of her attitude towards us, I mean, what had we ever done to her? Was it just kids she didn't like? I doubted it. I was positive it was us. And I was determined to find out.

--

"I've got an idea." I said one day to Haru after we had finished our dish-cleaning duty. When he looked at me, I continued. "Let's learn how to play Go, so we can beat Shizuka."

"Why? And I doubt we could beat her anyways." He said with a sigh. "Nobody can beat her."

"Well we will!" I snapped. He just shook his head and turned onto his side in his bed. Pouting, I pulled my covers up to my shoulders and stared at the wall, a plot formulating in my head. We could learn how to play Go. We were smart, we could figure it out. And each time, we'd make a bet with her, until we finally won. There was something that had been bugging us for a long time, and we needed to figure it out. This was the only way we could do it. Nobody would tell us. Every time we asked, Sasori got sad, Deidara changed the subject, Kisame said we would find out when we were older, and Konan told us some things were better off left unsaid. In bugged us to no end. We needed to know.

--

That's when I became obsessed with the game Go. I watched every game that went on at base, until I knew every rule and almost every strategy there was. I practiced for hours everyday and worked my way up the 'ranks'. I started by playing Hidan, and when I finally beat him, I played against Deidara. When Haru caught onto my obsession, we started playing against each other. He ended up being harder than everyone else. I could beat Kisame after a few months, but I still couldn't beat Dad or Haru. Haru couldn't beat Dad though. We spent a year perfecting this until we could both beat Konan. We were afraid to try playing Pain, so we decided to skip him and go straight to the grandmaster of the game.

One day, we set up the board game, than raced to Shizuka's room. We found her on her bed reading a thick leather-bound book. She was so deep into the book, she didn't realize we were there until we waved our hands in the air and yelled out 'Shizuka-sama!'. She jumped and put her book down and glared at us.

"What?" She snapped.

"We challenge you to a game of Go!" I retorted back, crossing my arms over my chest. She just stared at me like I was out of my mind. Than with a groan, she shook her head and picked up her book again. Discouraged, we left the room. Than tried again the next day. She turned us away again. It wasn't until a week later that she finally gave in and played.

"But, it's one person against one, not two against one." She said, sitting down at the table, her cloak billowing out around her. "That means you two have to decide who I play against."

With a frown, I looked at Haru, who stared back at me. He was better, but this was my goal, my obsession. We'd have a better chance at winning if he played, but I wanted this so badly, it was driving me insane.

"You play Reizo." Haru said with a light smile. "I'll beat her when you loose."

I stuck my tongue out at him for his lack of confidence in me, but sat down anyways, a slight grin playing at my lips. The excitement and adrenaline rushed through my veins as I stared Shizuka down from across the board. I'd sat here many times before, but the last time Shizuka had been on the opposite end from me was when I was watching her play Kisame, when I had made the first bet.

"And let's bet." I added, right as I sat down.

"What is it with you and bets?" She asked.

"If I win, you have to answer all my questions, truthfully, for a whole day."

She blinked her blue eyes rapidly, and looked at me long and hard for a long time. But I didn't want to give in and admit that her gaze was making me nervous, so I stared back. Finally, with a nod of her head, she said her terms. If she won, I had to make everyone's beds for a week.

It was the first time I'd played against her. And it was the first time I had lost to her as well. I was so depressed and frustrated, I skipped dinner that night. And the next morning, everyone's beds were left unmade, under strict orders from Shizuka-sama, not to make their beds. At first everyone was confused, but when they found out about my bet, they laughed and went along with it. Except Dad. He glared down at Shi and said he wasn't going to participate in her foolish games. He made his bed and mine all that week.

The next day, Haru played against Shi, saying if he won, she had to answer all his questions, truthfully, for a whole day. That was always our wager. Hers was always some different stupid chore. It went on that way for two years.

Than we gave up.

We couldn't beat her. We knew it. We became discouraged, and gave up Go completely. It had been our passion for so long, yet we stopped playing. We lost excitement in watching the games, and eventually our own board got covered in dust.

We didn't touch it again until I was fifteen.

Picking up the board, I ran my hands over the smooth wood, wiping away the dust in finger-sized trails. Gently, I unfolded it, and laid it out on the table, than set up all the pieces. Slowly, the game came back to me, and I realized I had missed the game so much. The old obsession came back, and the old thrill of the game rushed through my head like a tidal wave. But most of all, came the determination to figure out what we had wanted to know so badly. We still wanted to know. We still had to know. It was now or never.

Leaving the board game set up and ready, I walked to Shi-sama's room, and knocked on her door. When she allowed entrance, I walked in and looked at her. When I had first challenged her to a game, she had been twenty-five, now she was thirty-two. Still young, but not nearly as young as she had been. Yet, still her blue eyes and reddish-brown hair still struck me somewhere deep inside. And again, that intensity to know the truth snapped at me like a whip.

"Shi-sama." I said. "I challenge you to a game of Go."

She turned and looked at me from her desk. Her eyes scanned me up and down, but I didn't cringe or shy away from her stare. I was stronger than that. I was determined. Slowly, a smile spread across her lips.

"Good. I've been waiting." She said. Rising to her feet, she walked towards me, than past me, out to the living. I followed her, and we assumed our old positions.

"I'm assuming you want to make a bet?" She asked. I nodded. "And let me guess, if you win, I have to answer all your questions, truthfully, for a whole day." Again I nodded. "Ok, and if I win..." She stopped and sighed. Her gaze turned to look out the window as she tried to think of something. She had used up all the chores on us already. And she couldn't use chores on me anymore, I was fifteen. Finally, she turned back and looked at me. "If I win, I want you and your brother to go stay in Suna and pursue becoming ninjas."

I wasn't prepared for that. Haru and I were already ninjas, but because we had lived with Akatsuki our whole life, we didn't have a village. Everyone in Akatsuki had, at one point, been a part of a village. We hadn't. We were missing-nins, without really being missing from any village. Never before had we thought of actually joining a village. All our lives, we had assumed we were Akatsuki members. But looking at it from a different angle, I realized, we weren't. We didn't wear rings like everyone else, we didn't have headbands with our prior village's symbol crossed out on it, and we didn't have a fancy cloak like everyone else. We weren't Akatsuki, we weren't missing-nins, and we weren't technically ninjas. So what were we?

I hesitated for a long time, churning this over in my mind. If I lost, I would have to tell Haru we were leaving to go become Suna nins... I don't think I could've broken that news to him. I couldn't do that. Yet, despite the threat of having to leave, I was still determined; now even more so that she wanted us to leave.

"Okay." I said, nodding. "You've got a deal."

She looked me over again, than nodded slowly. "You can have the first move."

The game lasted a lot longer than previous games had. At first, I was rusty, but the more I played, the more it came back to me. It never became easy for me though, like it was for her. She played with ease for a good majority of the game, while I had to work. But as we got to the end, she hesitated longer in making a move, and I could almost see her thinking as she stared down at the board. I was actually a match for her. It was thrilling, and horrifying at the same time. I had to win, I had to win. I needed to know, and I didn't want to go to Suna. I didn't want to tell Haru we'd been kicked out because I had made a stupid bet.

Time sped by, and nearly an hour passed before we finally finished the game. And when we came to the last move, a look crossed her face. Her hardened features, previously distorted by concentration, relaxed and became calm and soft. My heart sank. She was relaxed. How could I have lost? Where was my flaw? Where was my weakness? She made her move, and I was sure she could hear my heart hammering in my chest, trying to burst its way out. Than my eyes widened in confusion. She had given me an easy win. What was going on? What was I missing? I won? How? I was dumbfounded. I just stared at the board for a long time, trying to figure it out, but nothing came to me. So I made my move. And I beat Shizuka-sama in a game of Go.

"Congrats kid." She said, with a light smile. I looked up at her, still dumb-struck. I won. I won.

"I won?" I asked, still not able to believe it.

"Yup." She said, dragging the word out. "You won."

My heart jumped with a joy, and I actually jumped to my feet and cried out, 'I won! I won!'. When I got the gloating out of my system, I looked back at her. She was just staring at me, and when I looked her in the eyes, I saw something I didn't think she was capable of. Her eyes shone with motherly pride. Towards me.

I could only stare at her for a while, before I finally collected myself and sat back down.

"Shoot away." She said.

Finally, I was able to ask the questions that had haunted Haru and myself our whole lives. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming, but everything was so crisp and clear, I knew it couldn't be a dream. It was actually happening. So, with a slow nod, I started my parade of questions.

"When did you become leader of the Akatsuki?" I asked for starters, needing some place to warm up.

"When I was seventeen." That was it. No further explanation. So I asked my next question.

"When did you join?"

"When I was sixteen." She remained almost motionless, and mostly calm. I wasn't going to get anymore details unless I dug deeper, but that wasn't what I was looking for, so I skipped on to something more important.

"What's your relationship with dad?"

That's when she stopped. She stared down at the game board, and didn't say anything for awhile. When she finally spoke, her voice was very, very distant.

"He was my sensei..."

"Was?" I asked, confused by the past tense.

"We haven't trained together since I was seventeen."

"Why'd you stop?" I asked, frowning. This wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was a start to the million questions I had.

She sighed. "I got so busy with leading the Akatsuki I didn't have time to train."

"Where you two close?" I asked, trying to figure out why they were so tense around each other.

"Well, the first time we met, we had been fighting to the death. Than the next time, I was trying to kill him and he was trying to suck me into the Akatsuki. It's his fault I got stuck here. But, that's not what you asked." She said, shaking her head. "Yes, we were close. Very close."

"How close?"

She bit her lip and stared down at the board. I barely heard what she said, but I did pick it up, and it shocked me to the core. "We were in love at one point..."

They had been in love. My dad and Shizuka-sama had been in love. A shiver ran down my spine. The similarities were adding up, and scaring me shitless. I could already see how this was going to end, but I didn't want to. It couldn't be.

"You had a miscarriage once, right?" I asked, trying to pull away from the idea of my dad loving this woman who had been so heartless to me for fifteen years. How could he love her? How could she love?

She just nodded.

"How old were you?"

I watched as her neck moved around the way it did when somebody swallowed. Her head was bowed low and her bangs hung down over her face, so I couldn't see her eyes, but I could hear it in her voice. I was brining up very painfully memories for her.

"Sixteen..." She said weakly.

"Did you ever get pregnant again after that?" I asked, not pausing once. I kept shooting one bullet right after the next, each one hitting its mark.

"Once."

"What happened?" Now came the answer I was afraid of hearing. I didn't want her to answer, but I did.

"Everything went fine." She said after a long hesitation. I waited for more of an answer, but I got nothing else.

"Where is the kid now?" I asked. She didn't answer.

"Who was the dad?" Still no answer.

I frowned and shook my head. _No, no, no! It can't be! It can't! _But the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. All these years of suspicion, they were only rising. Now they were at their peak, and by now I knew, they were true. I didn't even need to hear it, and I knew they were true. But I didn't want to. It couldn't be true.

"What happened to my mother?" I finally asked. My voice came out cold and hard, and it startled me. It didn't sound like me. "Where is my mother?"

She didn't say anything for a long time, and for a while, I didn't think she heard me, so I opened my mouth to ask again, but stopped when she raised her head. She looked at me, her blue eyes now red from the tears that streamed down her cheeks. We stared at each other for a long time and even with the red, puffiness of her crying, it still startled me how much she looked like me. How much I looked like her.

"Reizo..." She said shaking her head and wiping her eyes. A weak smile played across her face as she looked up at me again. "Reizo, sweetie, I'm sorry. I've been here your whole life."


End file.
